Matthew 9:37 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Matthew 9:37

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Christ shares his burden with his disciples, not only because they must pray for this need, but because they too are about to take their part in this work. We might think that the words ‘the harvest truly is plenteous’ mean that the number of people that will be saved is great, but no, the harvest is the whole of mankind, saved and unsaved. Only some will be gathered into God’s barn. The harvest is seen from the perspective of the final day, the day when the wheat will be separated from the chaff; both are harvested together. A vast number of souls will be present on that day. To be sure, the reaping is carried out throughout the history of the world, and God’s people are involved in gathering in by means of the preaching of the gospel, but only so many will be saved. Pray ye therefore for more labourers than we represent. More labourers will mean more of the crop is gathered. The picture is of a harvest which will go to waste if it is not harvested. There are vast ripe fields before us, but an insufficient number of reapers to go and cut it down and store it safely in the barn. In a sense there can never be enough reapers to do justice to the size of the ripe fields. The way Christ puts it, it is as if more reapers equal more safely gathered harvest. We know that the work is hard, and the gospel preacher faces many obstacles which must be overcome, but Christ reduces the scale to the work to this one factor. We see the hardness of the people, but we encourage ourselves. We don’t see how, but if we press forward, he will show us the way to do this.God has determined that it is through the preaching of the gospel that the wheat will be brought into his barn, and he has chosen to use human instruments to bring this about. Jesus Christ was one of those instruments, but, as a man, even he could only be in one place at a time, and therefore he desired his disciples to join him in the work. This was said in preparation for the sending out of the twelve and for the gospel age to come. Christ awakens within them a sense of the importance of the harvest and the necessity of workers to go out into it, so that when they go, they go with the appropriate zeal for a successful outcome. Is soul winning our passion?But they must be instruments trained and sent by God and not unskilled workers. They must know how to reason with souls, how to plead with the lost, how to speak without the fear of men, how to preach for conviction, and how to explain the grace of God in Christ Jesus. They reap by their knowledge, and those without knowledge are not going to do anything worthwhile.

Application

It is God that must send labourers into his vineyard; they cannot send themselves. He is the Lord of the harvest; he determines everything about the harvest. The remedy is prayer, and of course a willingness to go yourself if the Lord should call you. If he does not send them, nothing of any real value will be accomplished. His sending them includes the guarantee that he will sustain them in all the difficulties of the work. It includes also the assurance that he will bless the work according to his will, and according to his timing, and to the extent that he chooses. Those who send themselves are not accompanied by his power and blessing, and in this work that counts for everything. Therefore if we are to see more workers in his vineyard, his harvest, we must start with him from whom everything comes.

This is the mystery of prayer. God has already chosen the number that will be saved, but Christ tells us to pray as if we could influence and even increase that number. How do we resolve these two things? By seeing that the Lord took our prayers into account when he determined the number of his elect. As those who are living and breathing and praying in time, it is as if we are able to influence God’s eternal choice, and Christ urges us to take advantage of our freedom to pray. Christ’s illustration seems to deliberately lose sight of election and place before the eager reaper a task which he loves to do because it brings such incalculable benefit. Go out into the fields, says the Lord, and reap for all you are worth, and there will be no discernible limit to what you can do. What is before you – ripe corn – is what you stand to gain. But don’t just think about what you can do as an individual; think also about the totality of the gathered crop, and desire a great ingathering because the crop is worth so much. Pray therefore that other workers besides yourself should go out and join in with the work. It is preparation for the work they are immediately about to do, but it is also about the onset of the church age. Pray that a day may come when this great harvest is harvested with the vigour it deserves. Christ is looking forward to what he will bring about through the work of his people.

We may pray now that people will be saved in order that they may save others. Some have commented that this is a shallow view, but this is what Christ meant. May God raise up workers that we do not even know about yet. It is a tragic thing when it takes us months to mount a small effort. We bring in children and how many more we should bring in. The sunshine of opportunity will only last so long and the weather will change and the crop be beaten down. Those who are young today will soon become hardened young adults. The harvest soon withers and falls: it is not there forever. What we need is labourers not onlookers. Pray that labourers will go in, motivated not just by shame at doing nothing, but by a sense of the value of the crop.

How much is the grain worth when it has been gathered safely into God’s barn? How much is a human soul worth that has found Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour and been given the gift of eternal life! Sadly, we can forget about this. We can let the thought of this fade in our minds. The value of a soul has not changed, but our perceptions have changed. We are no longer in touch with reality; that is the problem. How so? Perhaps we have yielded to the temptation to find satisfaction from the pleasures of this life. God gives us a certain amount of satisfaction from possessions, earthly achievements, but these things can become like a drug to us. A person who is given to eating too much knows that he must hold back. If he does not, then his desires will get out of control and take over and squeeze out other desires. Excess love of things damages our love for the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

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Matthew 9:37 Commentary and Bible Study